Corey Spaulding v. Framingham, City of - City Clerk (SPR 20221170)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records May 26, 2022 SPR22/1170 P.J. Iversen Records Access Officer Framingham City Clerk 150 Concord Street Framingham, MA 01702 Dear Mr. Iversen: I have received the petition of Corey Spaulding appealing the response of the Framingham City Clerk (City) to a request for public records. G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On May 4, 2022, Ms. Spaulding requested “any and all emails, records, information, documents, notes, etc. that the Town/City of Framingham, School Committee has that references [two named individuals].” The City provided a fee estimate on May 17, 2022. Unsatisfied with the response, Ms. Spaulding petitioned this office and this appeal, SPR22/1170, was opened as result. Fee estimate - municipalities A municipality may assess a reasonable fee for the production of a public record except those records that are freely available for public inspection. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). The fees must reflect the actual cost of complying with a particular request. Id. A maximum fee of five cents ($.05) per page may be assessed for a black and white single or double-sided photocopy of a public record. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(i). Municipalities may not assess a fee for the first (two) 2 hours of employee time to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce the record or records requested unless the municipality has 20,000 people or less. G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii). Where appropriate, municipalities may include as part of the fee an hourly rate equal to or less than the hourly rate attributed to the lowest paid employee who has the necessary skill required to search for, compile, segregate, redact or reproduce a record requested, but the fee shall not be more than $25 per hour. Id. However, municipalities may charge more than $25 per hour if such rate is approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). A fee shall not be assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us

P.J. Iversen SPR22/1170 Page 2 May 26, 2022 redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv). See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iii); 950 C.M.R. 32.06(4). The City’s Fee Estimate In its May 17th response, the City gave a fee estimate of $7,507.50 and stated: [t]he records responsive to this request include but are not limited to over 12,000 emails. Based on initial review the emails may contain questions regarding legal advice and legal advice provided to various City officials. Each email/email thread will need to be reviewed to determine if the attorney-client privilege applies to the record in question. . . . Accordingly, compiling a response to your request will require a careful review of each email and segregation/redaction of exempt information within the email. The City estimates the time needed for this review to be approximately 1.5 minutes per email. As a result, the estimated cost to respond to your request is $7,507.50. Although the City has estimated that the process of compiling, reviewing, and preparing responsive documents will take 302.2 hours of employee time, it is unclear how the City requires this many hours to produce responsive records. Specifically, it is unclear what tasks are involved to prepare responsive records for production and why the City requires 1.5 minutes to review each email. As such, the City must provide further details regarding its fee estimate. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv) (requiring the amount of the fee be reasonable). The City must confirm that the rate of $25.00 per hour is that of the lowest paid employee capable of performing such work. Further, the City is reminded that it may only charge for segregation and redaction required by law. See G. L. c. 66, § l0(d)(iii) (a fee shall not be assessed for time spent segregating or redacting records unless such segregation or redaction is required by law or approved by the Supervisor of Records under a petition under G. L. c. 66, § 10(d)(iv)). For the reasons discussed above, I find the City must revise its fee estimate or provide further explanation of how the fee assessed is expressly provided for and consistent with G. L. c. 66, § 10(d). I encourage Ms. Spaulding and the City to communicate further in order to facilitate producing records efficiently and affordably. Ms. Spaulding may wish to include applicable time periods or additional factors to enable the search to be processed. G. L. c. 66, § l0(a)(i). The City must use its knowledge of the records to facilitate providing any responsive records. G. L. c. 66, § l0(a)(vii) (an agency or municipality shall suggest a reasonable modification of the scope of the request or offer to assist the requestor to modify the scope of the request if doing so would enable the agency or municipality to produce records sought more efficiently and affordably).

P.J. Iversen SPR22/1170 Page 3 May 26, 2022 Conclusion Accordingly, the City is ordered to provide Ms. Spaulding with a response to the request, provided in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law and its Regulations within ten (10) business days. A copy of any such response must be provided to this office. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of this response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma.us. Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Corey Spaulding